Barcelona - July 28th, 1:20 pm

You don't know this - and why would you - but sometimes I talk in my sleep. It was an intermittent annoyance to my family growing up, and is downright irksome to Velina, but there you have it. Normally the worst thing that happens is my talking wakes up Velina, who then has to awaken me to shut me up. Annoying, yes, but at least I'm not in public... So, I'm on the SFO - Atlanta leg of my trip to Barcelona. Early flight, I go to sleep. And I have this dream in which burglars have broken into our apartment and are threatening Velina and our son, Zachary. And in the dream I begin to tell the crooks - in a firm, increasingly serious tone - that if they touch my wife or child I will kill all of them. I'm not panicky, or shouting. It's not a threat or a promise; it is a calm statement of an absolute truth. I repeat that I will kill all, all of them. I will. I will. It is some time during these statements that I start to feel a difficulty speaking, so I have to concentrate harder, and speak even more slowly and clearly: I will kill all of you motherfuckers if you hurt my family. I will... I will... And then I realize, during this repetition, that the difficulty I'm having is because I'm waking up. ( I should mention that on the plane I'm wearing a sleep mask and a over-the-ear headset.) The plane seems really quiet. I take off my eye mask and look at the woman next to me. "Excuse me, was I talking in my sleep?" She says nothing, and from what little o heard her say earlierI wonder if she speaks English. Nobody else seems freaked out, so maybe I didn't say it out loud. A minute later the stewardess stops her tray opposite me, looks wide-eyed, and says in a fearful whisper "Who were you talking to?" Apparently the whole plane. I don't know what the other passengers thought was going on, but I'm guessing those motherfuckers won't mess with me on the future!